German Masters (the qualifying rounds) - Day 1

05:37:00
Ramona Dragomir
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After all that live snooker brought to you so kindly by the BBC and the EuroSport programmes, it is time to get used with the good old live scoring system, provided by the World Snooker web-site. And since we are talking about their web-site, do me a favor and pay them a visit as they have new clothes :-P. A brand new re-designed web-site that promises to keep you in touch with snooker and everything that relates to the subject. It still has some little problems, but I won’t worry if I were you, as I think it is only normal when you have a change of look to also feel a bit disoriented :-))

But back to business people, as the German Masters qualifying rounds have kicked off yesterday morning in the beautiful and multifunctional Snooker Academy from Sheffield. The tournament is a new one, although there were several attempts in the past to make this a regular event; from 1995 until 1997 the tournament (back then it was called German Open and it was a ranking one) was staged in Berlin with the likes of John Higgins and Ronnie O`Sullivan being the winners (John had two titles, Ronnie only one). In 1998, the tournament changed its name into German Masters but it wasn’t a ranking event anymore and the champion was John Parrott, who defeated Mark Williams by a 6-4 scoreline.Now, the tournament is back for good with a brand new format and it means serious business. ;-) It will be held in the German capital of Berlin, in February next year, 2-6 of the month to be more precise.

Jimmy is ready to start potting those balls

The first day of the qualifying rounds was a very intense one, as the "best of nine" rule always makes players fight more and obtain better results. We had four matches that ended on a decider: the one between Anthony Hamilton and Kurt Maflin (5-4 in favor of the first), the one between this year’s Shanghai Masters runner-up Jamie Burnett and the Thai James Wattana (5-4 in favor of Jamie), the one between the PTC 4 winner, Barry Pinches and Kyren Wilson (5-4 in favor of the second) and the one between the legendary Tony Drago and Kuldesh Johan (5-4 in favor of "The Tornado").

After that awful match played against Stephen Hendry last week, "The Whirlwind" Jimmy White seems to be back on track as he hammered Liam Highfield 5-2 to make it into the next round , where he’ll meet his namesake Jimmy Robertson, who defeated the Brazilian star Igor Figueiredo by the same result. This will be interesting to watch - two Jimmys in action :-))A great response from the Thai Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon, who crashed Patrick Wallace 5-0, but also from Nigel Bond who eliminated the only female competitor, Reanne Evans, by the same score.

And here is the complete list of scores for yesterday’s matches:

Anthony Hamilton 5 - 4 Kurt Maflin

Fergal O'Brien 2 - 5 Adam Wicheard

Patrick Wallace 0 - 5 Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon

Alfie Burden 5 - 2 Zhang Anda

Mike Dunn - bye

Jack Lisowski 5 - 2 James McBain

Jamie Burnett 5 - 4 James Wattana

Bjorn Haneveer 3 - 5 Liu Song

Barry Pinches 4 - 5 Kyren Wilson

Nigel Bond 5 - 0 Reanne Evans

Jimmy White 5 - 2 Liam Highfield

Jimmy Robertson 5 - 2 Igor Figueiredo

Tony Drago 5 - 4 Kuldesh Johal

Ian McCulloch 5 - 1 Issara Kachaiwong

Rod Lawler 2 – 5 Simon Bedford

Andy Hicks 5 - 1 Paul Davison

Today, yet another group of brave players will face their opponents in their way to the next round: